Monday, September 2, 2013

Technology Integration in the classroom

Technology Integration in the classroom

The idea of
technology is to make life easier and more interesting. Why should it be any
different in the classroom with technology integration?

The importance of technology in the classroom is un-parallel to much else in the classroom. Think of classrooms without a white board or a projector. Think of life without email. Technology integration has been underway for many years in the classroom and continues to be just as important and just as challenging.

Photo credit Dell Inc.

Technology in the classroom should make certain concepts
easier for the students to conceptualize and more interesting with the variety
of the lessons that are now available with the vast amounts of technology. Communication through technology is easier
for teacher/parent/ student contact and should be seamless in the coming future.

The importance for successful technology integration in
the classroom is for the teachers as well as the students. There is importance
for the student’s learning because a new frontier in education is being discovered
thanks to technology. The vast amount of iPad apps that are now learning-based,

and safe
communication like Remind101 is now creating new possibilities in life and also in
the classroom.

The importance for effectively technology integration for the
teachers and some of the new technology that makes their lives easier. For
instance the SMART Boards allows for teachers to navigate a website
or learning games while standing at the board without having to move back and
forth to the computer and it serves for the teacher as well as
an interactive board for students to learn on.

Photo credit smarttech.com

Another example is Remind 101 for the safe communication for teachers with student and parents,
this technology makes reminding people about events or homework easier on the
teacher in a 100% safe environment.

The new technologies are very exciting and
requires teacher to be open to learning the new technologies and integrating
them into their classroom. In more of a non-direct vantage point
teachers using technology can help teach students how to use technology safely.
Teachers can have impact as role models for their students. When teachers
are using technology in a healthy and in productive way, the internet could become a
safer place in the future. The importance of seamless integration of technology
is relying of the quality of the new generation of teachers but brings lots of
rewards for the students’ predicted and still unseen as well as rewards for the
teachers and the school system.

Good technology integration is
what the modern teacher is. It should look like a teacher who has passion, is
flexible and quick on their feet. The lessons plans should be using diverse types
of technology and different degrees of new and old technology with multiple
learning styles in mind. All of this should be in reality with different type
of technology like the iPad apps and class Dojo incorporating with old
technology such as calculators and hands on learning as well as lecture
pedagogical strategies. All in all successful technology integration in the
classroom is technology that is not an afterthought, it is forefront in lesson
plans and a dominate part of the modern teachers’ role. Good technology integration in the classroom looks natural. It is not a teacher where technology was an after thought, an accessory or forced into a lesson.

Photo credit Judy Baxter

The best integration of technology is the NETS-T model in my opinion. NETS-T has a balance between what the teacher should do to better the class, lesson and professional improvement. The equilibrium of pedagogical strategies with technology integration and content knowledge which is TPACK.

Photo credit notaboutthetools.pbworks.com

What I like about NETS-T when compared to NETS-S, 21st Century Skills Framework and NC Teacher Evaluation is the NETS-T incorporates "professional development." Which to me, without a teacher that has professional development in technology, what good is that teacher in technology? I think it is important that the teacher take time to learn what they are going to be using in the classrooms. With the professional development, NETS-T includes digital age learning, showing modern digital age work and learning skills, promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility and facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity. All of these seem to balance what a modern teacher should model for their own classrooms.

Photo credit www.iste.org

As
for my experience with technology integration in the classroom, in primary and
secondary schools I did not have a teacher do well. Not saying that my teachers
were not trying and did not teach well! Sadly my school system is just recently
getting smart boards in all the elementary schools and mobile laptops for
teachers to reserve for their classroom. My classes had 3 or 4 desktops in the
back of the room and a projector and lots of overheads. Some would bring us to the library for
research days and bring in the laptop labs for us to use. Smartphones were banned in my school
especially during classes. Most teachers hated them and thought that the
integrity of the education system was being insulted with the use of smart
phones in the classroom. In contrast my collegiate career has been a far more positive cry from my secondary schooling memories. I have had multiple classes
require laptops in class, have had classes use clickers for questions as well
as smartphone apps like, GoSoapBox app, for daily quizzes and MOST of my
classes use Moodle or WebAssign for information, homework,
quizzes and even some tests digitally.

Photo credit moodle.org

Photo credit webassign.net

I have had some teacher use aspects of a
successful integration of technology in the classroom but yet to find a teacher
that has mastered all aspects. I hope to be that teacher someday that can have
a healthy equilibrium of technology integration in my classroom.

Photo credit Rebecca Levey

In the sad event that teachers
do not integrate technology effectively the results can be ugly. I had an
English professor that did not use technology at all. He would ask students to
leave immediately if he saw a phone and thought that using phones in class
directly was disrespectful to him as a teacher as well as the education we as
students were paying for. While I agree texting in class is disruptive and
disrespectful, teachers should always be flexible to incorporating new ideas
and interactive activities with technology. This professor did not even have a Moodle site and there was no way for his students to check on their grades electronically
or check the assigned reading for homework.
Now in my opinion he taught us the English course, I just saw room for
improvement in the technology integration and accessibility department.